Jensen Receives AFL Roland Hemond Award Tonight
Published on November 14, 2012 under Arizona Fall League (AzFL) News Release
Phoenix, Arizona - Arizona Fall League communications head Paul Jensen is the recipient of the Arizona Fall League's 2012 Roland Hemond Award.
The award is presented annually to recognize baseball executives who have provided outstanding service to professional baseball and served the Arizona Fall League in a key leadership capacity. Jensen will receive the award during pre-game ceremonies at tonight's 6:35 p.m. game between the Mesa Solar Sox and Scottsdale Scorpions at Scottsdale Stadium.
Baseball ambassador Hemond, the architect of the Arizona Fall League who currently serves the Arizona Diamondbacks as special assistant to the president and chief executive officer, was general manager of the Chicago White Sox when Jensen broke into baseball in 1984 as the White Sox public relations director.
Jensen - The Park Ridge, IL native has enjoyed a varied career in athletic public relations and communications prior to joining the Arizona Fall League in 2006.
Following graduation from the University of Kentucky in journalism, military service as a U.S. Air Force missile launch officer at Grand Forks AFB, ND and a brief stint as an associate editor of Pro Football Weekly in Chicago, Jensen began his athletic communications career as assistant sports information director at Purdue University from 1976-81 before matriculationg to Arizona State University as sports information director from 1981-84.
In 1984, he joined the White Sox as public relations director, a position he held for five years before returning to Arizona for a 15-year tenure as public relations director of the NFL Arizona Cardinals.
Since 2004, Jensen has been consulting in athletic communications, serving the Arizona Fall League, Camelback Ranch-Glendale (spring home of the Los Angeles Dodgers and White Sox) and the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl among other clients.
Hemond - Hemond, a veteran baseball executive, is a three-time winner of MLB's Executive-of-the-Year Award and the 2011 recipient of the second Buck O'Neil Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Arizona Fall League Hemond Award is one of four awards in his name. The others are the White Sox Roland Hemond Award, the Baseball America Award and the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) Award.
Hemond's dream of creating a six-week off-season league for baseball's top prospects in Arizona each fall became reality when the Arizona Fall League began play in 1992 after he spent two years selling the concept to baseball's hierarchy - first general managers, then owners.
Roland Hemond Award Winners
2012 - Paul Jensen
2011 - Dr. Fred Dicke
Dr. Angelo Mattalino
2010 - Tim Purpura
2009 - Terry Ryan
2008 - Rich Garcia
2007 - Frank Robinson
2006 - Al Rosen
Dick Wagner
2005 - Joan McGrath
2004 - Bill Murray
2003 - Mike Port
2002 - Dan O'Brien, Sr.
2001 - Roland Hemond
Arizona Fall League Stories from November 14, 2012
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